Miss Heidi at The Pub
Day Five, Wednesday May 26th 2016
Enter Hurricane Heidi.
Our busy days begin. Heidi, one of Dawn’s best friends from Florida, just happened to be in the Caribbean. She was on a two month break from Abu Dhabi where she lives with her husband, Tom. He is an ex-fighter pilot who now contracts his services to the government there. During Ramadan, Heidi says, the whole country just about shuts down. Most of the ex-pats there send their wives away for two months since there is nothing for them to do.
I think they just want a two month break from the little woman.
Heidi doesn’t fit the description of the little woman. She is Dutch born with a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. She spent her early years in Indonesia, then her family moved to Germany where she completed her education.
She is blonde haired and blue eyed, stands about 5’ 10,” and has the figure of a Playboy model. She could be a starter on the Swedish Bikini Team (if any of you are old enough to remember those commercials). She speaks at least five languages and can debate you in any subject of conversation. Oh, yes, she is an expert in martial arts and a master of yoga. She posts pictures of herself in painfully contorted poses, lifting her body off the mat with one had. I wouldn’t mess with this broad.
Originally we planned for Dawn to come to Panama with me, then Heidi would show up five days later. As you know, that didn’t work. Heidi came on Wednesday and Dawn flew in the next day.
We (Wes, Joyce and I) arrived in town plenty early to pick Heidi up. We needed to do a little grocery shopping, but I wanted to wait until after Heidi arrived. Heidi is a herbivore and I felt that she needed a chance to stock up on whatever it is that veggies eat. After our stop at the “super-market,” we headed to the airport.
(I use the term “super-market” loosely. I don’t want you to think we were shopping in a Safeway. In Panama a super-market is what we would call a mom and pop grocery store. Then there are super-minis which are more like a 7-11.)
Enter Hurricane Heidi.
Our busy days begin. Heidi, one of Dawn’s best friends from Florida, just happened to be in the Caribbean. She was on a two month break from Abu Dhabi where she lives with her husband, Tom. He is an ex-fighter pilot who now contracts his services to the government there. During Ramadan, Heidi says, the whole country just about shuts down. Most of the ex-pats there send their wives away for two months since there is nothing for them to do.
I think they just want a two month break from the little woman.
Heidi doesn’t fit the description of the little woman. She is Dutch born with a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. She spent her early years in Indonesia, then her family moved to Germany where she completed her education.
She is blonde haired and blue eyed, stands about 5’ 10,” and has the figure of a Playboy model. She could be a starter on the Swedish Bikini Team (if any of you are old enough to remember those commercials). She speaks at least five languages and can debate you in any subject of conversation. Oh, yes, she is an expert in martial arts and a master of yoga. She posts pictures of herself in painfully contorted poses, lifting her body off the mat with one had. I wouldn’t mess with this broad.
Originally we planned for Dawn to come to Panama with me, then Heidi would show up five days later. As you know, that didn’t work. Heidi came on Wednesday and Dawn flew in the next day.
We (Wes, Joyce and I) arrived in town plenty early to pick Heidi up. We needed to do a little grocery shopping, but I wanted to wait until after Heidi arrived. Heidi is a herbivore and I felt that she needed a chance to stock up on whatever it is that veggies eat. After our stop at the “super-market,” we headed to the airport.
(I use the term “super-market” loosely. I don’t want you to think we were shopping in a Safeway. In Panama a super-market is what we would call a mom and pop grocery store. Then there are super-minis which are more like a 7-11.)
Heidi and Penn bend an elbow at The Pub
Wes and Joyce knew Heidi from their visits to Dawn in Florida. We watched the plane land and the people deplane.
There is only the slightest hint of security at the Bocas airport. The passengers climb down the staircase from the plane and walk across the tarmac to the little terminal. They walk into a small room where they wait for their baggage. There is only one “boarding gate” at the airport. No reason for two planes to be here at the same time.
I stood at the door and watched for Heidi to enter the room. There was no problem spotting her. This tall, blonde, Nordic goddess was surrounded by little brown people. The average Panamanian man must be about 5’ 4”, the women less than 5’. Heidi towered over everybody in the room. Her long blonde hair was put up in a bun, but there was no mistaking who she was.
She tore a muscle in her calf in Indiana. (I’m telling you, exercise is bad for your health!) It was mostly healed by now, but she still wore her immobilization boot. She couldn’t fit it in her suitcase.
We met with the requisite hugs, grabbed her luggage (No luggage carousels in Panama. They just slide the bags in through a small hole in the wall.) and climbed into Wes’s truck. Joyce took us to the Super Gourmet Market. There Heidi put in her supplies and I spent a surprisingly large amount of money ($60) on stuff that I wanted.
The Gourmet Market roasts chickens, so we picked one up for dinner. Unlike Costco, these are normal sized chickens. They come with half a chicken and roasted potatoes in one bag. We got two. That and a salad made an easy dinner.
Heidi let her moral high ground slip just a little and had some chicken with us.
Afterwards, we read a little, then headed for bed.
That’s when the hurricane struck. I was staying in the closet-sized guest room and Heidi got the loft with a queen-sized bed.
She turned in and climbed the ladder to the loft. All hell broke loose.
It seems that Miss Heidi is terrified of cockroaches and spiders. She, who has climbed the mountains in the Himalayas and sailed the fierce North Sea, was scared out of her mind at a tiny bug.
She immediately jumped back down the stairs and armed herself with bug spray and Off! You must understand that Heidi is a friend of the Earth. She won’t eat foods that have been genetically modified, been raised with chemical pesticides or throw away plastic bottles. Yet here she was, violating her dearest principles with unrestricted chemical anti-bug warfare.
She sprayed down her bedroom with so many chemicals that I could smell it in my room, with the door closed, on the first floor in an adjoining building.
There is only the slightest hint of security at the Bocas airport. The passengers climb down the staircase from the plane and walk across the tarmac to the little terminal. They walk into a small room where they wait for their baggage. There is only one “boarding gate” at the airport. No reason for two planes to be here at the same time.
I stood at the door and watched for Heidi to enter the room. There was no problem spotting her. This tall, blonde, Nordic goddess was surrounded by little brown people. The average Panamanian man must be about 5’ 4”, the women less than 5’. Heidi towered over everybody in the room. Her long blonde hair was put up in a bun, but there was no mistaking who she was.
She tore a muscle in her calf in Indiana. (I’m telling you, exercise is bad for your health!) It was mostly healed by now, but she still wore her immobilization boot. She couldn’t fit it in her suitcase.
We met with the requisite hugs, grabbed her luggage (No luggage carousels in Panama. They just slide the bags in through a small hole in the wall.) and climbed into Wes’s truck. Joyce took us to the Super Gourmet Market. There Heidi put in her supplies and I spent a surprisingly large amount of money ($60) on stuff that I wanted.
The Gourmet Market roasts chickens, so we picked one up for dinner. Unlike Costco, these are normal sized chickens. They come with half a chicken and roasted potatoes in one bag. We got two. That and a salad made an easy dinner.
Heidi let her moral high ground slip just a little and had some chicken with us.
Afterwards, we read a little, then headed for bed.
That’s when the hurricane struck. I was staying in the closet-sized guest room and Heidi got the loft with a queen-sized bed.
She turned in and climbed the ladder to the loft. All hell broke loose.
It seems that Miss Heidi is terrified of cockroaches and spiders. She, who has climbed the mountains in the Himalayas and sailed the fierce North Sea, was scared out of her mind at a tiny bug.
She immediately jumped back down the stairs and armed herself with bug spray and Off! You must understand that Heidi is a friend of the Earth. She won’t eat foods that have been genetically modified, been raised with chemical pesticides or throw away plastic bottles. Yet here she was, violating her dearest principles with unrestricted chemical anti-bug warfare.
She sprayed down her bedroom with so many chemicals that I could smell it in my room, with the door closed, on the first floor in an adjoining building.
My Kathleen Turner Arrives
Dawn was one tired puppy Day Six, Thursday May 27th 2016
First thing this morning, I asked Heidi if she slept well. Big mistake. She spent the night keeping the world safe from insects.
It seems that she spent the night sitting on her bed with a flashlight in one hand and the bug spray in the other. Every few minutes, she’d turn on the light to check for bugs, then she’d bomb them. She didn’t sleep a wink.
Did I mention that we’re living in a tropical rainforest? What do you find in a tropical rainforest besides palm trees and monkeys? That’s right, class, you find bugs, Millions and millions of them. They are everywhere. Joyce is an anti-bug fanatic and goes around with a can of Dos Tigres bug-spray, shooting at anything that moves, yet still they come. It’s like the Mongol hordes descending on China. There is no way to stem the tide.
My Kathleen Turner finally arrived today. Dawn was one tired puppy.
We drove to the airport to pick her up at 7:30 am. She flew from Seattle to San Diego on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning she boarded her plane at 7:30 for the flight to Panama. After almost twenty hours traveling, she waited four hours in the Panama City airport (until Allbrook field opened at 4 am) then took a taxi across town.
She got on the 6:30 Air Panama flight and arrived in Boca at 7:30. She traveled around twenty-four hours to get here.
This is after spending a week in Seattle tending to her cousin’s memorial. When she arrived there Shelly’s dad, Bill, told her “Are we glad to see you. You take care of all the arrangements.” They then left Dawn and her brother, Duane, to handle everything. She was exhausted when she boarded the plane in Seattle.
We took her home, dragged her bags upstairs and got her settled. She was so wired that she couldn’t take a nap and (I hesitate to admit in public) more than a little grouchy.
Joyce cooked us a steak dinner. I found a piece of dorado in the freezer for Heidi. We chatted for a while, then all melted off to bed. I read for a little, then turned in. Dawn was dead in the bed.
This is where I say that we all had a peaceful night and woke to a bright sunny morning, or not.
First thing this morning, I asked Heidi if she slept well. Big mistake. She spent the night keeping the world safe from insects.
It seems that she spent the night sitting on her bed with a flashlight in one hand and the bug spray in the other. Every few minutes, she’d turn on the light to check for bugs, then she’d bomb them. She didn’t sleep a wink.
Did I mention that we’re living in a tropical rainforest? What do you find in a tropical rainforest besides palm trees and monkeys? That’s right, class, you find bugs, Millions and millions of them. They are everywhere. Joyce is an anti-bug fanatic and goes around with a can of Dos Tigres bug-spray, shooting at anything that moves, yet still they come. It’s like the Mongol hordes descending on China. There is no way to stem the tide.
My Kathleen Turner finally arrived today. Dawn was one tired puppy.
We drove to the airport to pick her up at 7:30 am. She flew from Seattle to San Diego on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning she boarded her plane at 7:30 for the flight to Panama. After almost twenty hours traveling, she waited four hours in the Panama City airport (until Allbrook field opened at 4 am) then took a taxi across town.
She got on the 6:30 Air Panama flight and arrived in Boca at 7:30. She traveled around twenty-four hours to get here.
This is after spending a week in Seattle tending to her cousin’s memorial. When she arrived there Shelly’s dad, Bill, told her “Are we glad to see you. You take care of all the arrangements.” They then left Dawn and her brother, Duane, to handle everything. She was exhausted when she boarded the plane in Seattle.
We took her home, dragged her bags upstairs and got her settled. She was so wired that she couldn’t take a nap and (I hesitate to admit in public) more than a little grouchy.
Joyce cooked us a steak dinner. I found a piece of dorado in the freezer for Heidi. We chatted for a while, then all melted off to bed. I read for a little, then turned in. Dawn was dead in the bed.
This is where I say that we all had a peaceful night and woke to a bright sunny morning, or not.
Our HARD concrete house
Okay, back to the story. We settled into bed for a good night’s rest.
I haven’t slept well since a couple of years before Connie died. I was up with her at least every hour helping her to the bathroom, administering medication, cleaning her up or making a peanut butter sandwich for her. After she died, I never got back to my normal sleeping pattern.
So I awoke at about 2 am. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, then decided to read. What do you need when you’re reading in the middle of the night? Cookies of course.
Our room is in a small building off the main house. The deck that surrounds the house provides a walkway from our room to the main house.
When Dawn dropped dead in our bed, she had the flashlight in her hands. I didn’t want to wake her by wrestling it away from her, so I went on my mission in the dark. I mean, Indiana Jones wouldn’t need a flashlight, would he?
I crept down the walkway, into the house and found my cookies. On the way back to bed, I stepped out the door and felt for the wall to my room. It was right in front of me.
Or was it? I stepped into space and let out a blood curdling scream. (Dawn says I screamed like a little girl, but we all know I’m much too macho for that.) Then I plunged down the flight of concrete stairs.
I felt my wrist buckle underneath me as I bounced down the stairs. At the bottom, I did “face meets concrete 2.0.”
The household awoke. From out of somewhere Dawn was asking “Do you need help?”
“Get a light,” I screamed. I needed to look at my body and see what kind of damage I’d done.
It was raining and I lay there on the cold, wet landing, unable to get up. I saw a light. You know that they tell you to walk towards the light when you die. I was a goner.
Dawn examined my body with the flashlight as she knelt next to me. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t know.”
She helped me to my feet and into our room. I flopped down onto the bed. Everything hurt.
Did I dare go to sleep? You’re not supposed to let a concussion patient go to sleep. But it was the middle of the night and Dawn hadn’t slept in something like forty-eight hours. I couldn’t keep her up. I eventually drifted off to sleep.
So you see, I’m not accident prone, just the victim of circumstances.
Dawn just told Cesar (the gardener) that I’m accident prone. I object to that characterization. I’m more what you would call a victim of circumstances.
Take for instance, the boatyard. If you’ve been reading along, you know we had two months of hell cleaning, prepping and painting the Victory before we left.
As we were cleaning up on our last day, I was victimized. I was picking up tools while Dawn put the last splash of paint on the transom. The boat was completely cloaked in tarps because the boat yard workers had sanded and painted the bottom and the good state of California doesn’t want any of the noxious chemicals to get into the water.
I gathered up a paint tray, roller and a couple of paint brushes. I walked under the Victory’s hull picking up masking tape. As I stepped out from under the tarp, I was very careful not to get my feet caught in the draping tarps.
As I cleared the tarp and began to walk away, the mischievous tarp reached out and grabbed my ankle. I stumbled forward a few paces, then did a face plant on the concrete pad in the boatyard. I put my hands out to break my fall, but all I managed to break was my dignity.
I fell forward, smashing my left cheek into the concrete. I saw stars. I know I screamed because somewhere in the distance I heard someone yell, “Are you all right?”
I couldn’t answer. Pain exploded through my head, my left wrist felt broken. I couldn’t breathe much less get up.
This would be an appropriate time to tell you how dirty boat yards are. There must have been a half inch of dust, old bottom paint and just general goop on the deck. My face came up covered in blue paint that someone had sanded off their hull in about 1935. I was covered from head to foot in yuck.
But that wasn’t my biggest worry at that moment. People came running, forming a little circle around me. They were all talking and asking questions. I couldn’t answer them. Then, like Alita in the old country western song El Paso, Dawn was there, kneeling at my side.
“Are you OK?” she asked. “What happened?”
I managed to gasp “No.”
Someone showed up and put something under my head.
“Do I need to call 9-1-1?” Dawn asked.
“Yes. No. Take me to emergency.” I don’t know where those words came from. I certainly wasn’t thinking at the time.
I lay on the ground for a few minutes, then Dawn was back. She and a couple of guys helped me to my feet and into the truck.
The bottom line is that I had a concussion and a badly sprained wrist. They gave me a removable cast and I was ordered to a few days of bed rest. As you know I got the rest by taking the boat back to Chula Vista, spending a couple days working on it, then driving Dawn to the airport.
All of this was to show you that I was only the victim of circumstances. It was really not my fault.
2 Comments
12/30/2023 05:32:18 am
I wanted to express my gratitude for your insightful and engaging article. Your writing is clear and easy to follow, and I appreciated the way you presented your ideas in a thoughtful and organized manner. Your analysis was both thought-provoking and well-researched, and I enjoyed the real-life examples you used to illustrate your points. Your article has provided me with a fresh perspective on the subject matter and has inspired me to think more deeply about this topic.
12/30/2023 06:37:09 am
I wanted to express my gratitude for your insightful and engaging article. Your writing is clear and easy to follow, and I appreciated the way you presented your ideas in a thoughtful and organized manner. Your analysis was both thought-provoking and well-researched, and I enjoyed the real-life examples you used to illustrate your points. Your article has provided me with a fresh perspective on the subject matter and has inspired me to think more deeply about this topic.
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